Friday, April 23, 2010

Black Hole Or how I learned to love a telepathic robot.



The Black Hole
Image via Wikipedia


It was 1979 and I was 9.  My uncle took me to see a space movie made by Disney.  He and my mother didn't know about all the violence and shooting.  I didn't know about Black Holes, Retro Gravitation drives, magnetic levitation, Telepathy, robots, space ships, or Star Wars.  I was 9 and we didn't have the Internet so my exposure to these things were limited to my mom watching Star Trek and my dad complaining about it.

Most, ok many people can't track their love of space programs to their origin.  I on the other hand can list the two movies, when I saw them, and where I saw them.  The second is Battle Beyond the Stars which I will be covering later.

The first is 1979's Black Hole.  The story is about an exploration vehicle sent out looking for habitable planets for earth to colonize. Not that I understood that then.  The crew of the Palomino finds a derelict ship on the event horizon of a Black Hole.  As they are examining the ship they are pulled in to the black hole.  After a valiant effort to save the Palomino they dock with the mystery ship.

This mystery ship is the USS Cygnus and has lost it's crew and is now crewed by a group of robe covered androids lead by the monstrous Maximilian.  The androids follow the instructions of the mad Doctor Hans Reinhardt in his efforts to explore the inside of a black hole.

The there are several robots in this movie and I fell in love with one of them on the his first scene in the movie. Old BOB was a BiO-sanitation Battalion robot that was voiced by Slim Pickens.   I wanted one, I still want one.  Many of my friends are  fans of R2D2 and Cp3o but I think they are nice enough but they don't have the power of Old Bob.   Pickens performance turns a rusty old robot into one of the new frontiers greatest heroes.  I didn't think of Bob as a utility device.  The other hero robot was Vincent a newer model of the same type of robot.  But he didn't have the same feeling of someone who had lived a life or adventure.

There were many other robots in the movie but they were just stormtroopers in another appearance.  They could have been anything from walking trash cans to flying donuts because they were just not memorable.  I think the they were called Star or something like that.  Really they were just there to shoot and miss and get shot.  I think they may have been red shirts ooops wrong movie.

Since there were Hero robots the director decided to include a villain robot.  I don't mind telling you I had nightmares about Maximilian.  When Doctor Hans Reinhardt built Maximilian to carry out his orders but I cant tell you that can I it would be a spoiler.  Lets just say WOW bad robot.  You have to spend the time one weekend to see this great Sci-fi Gem.

If you haven't had a chance to enjoy this Classic of Sci-fi you may get a chance to see it later as a remake.  Thanks Disney

Image representing The Walt Disney Company as ...
Image via CrunchBase




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Sunday, April 18, 2010

Kick Ass

10 minutes in and starting to wonder why i.m watchuing this movie Traing montage is funny. Firdt time in costume looks like comic car hir was a surprise Music is a bit strange Dont like hit girl sceens Exploding head in a microwave was cool. Wolverine xray was nice Mr bitey Funny All the cameras so facebook First good sceen im kickass He should call himself asskick was funny though i new it was comming Homophobic bit was a bit strange Drugg runner was bit cool musoc again strange Roof jump for hit girl was nice Big daddy talks like a bad version of bat man

Nude teen girl getting a self tan whoop

Did nick cage reafd thw commic book before the movie. He plays big daddy a bit strange.

Totally ruins the red mist charcter. Capes jokew ok i keep foregetting to type cause im watching the movie so much.

Love the red mist drive pass the cop cars Who do you rthink you are would of worked better if they hadnt told us about red mist

Fire was great i thought him saving the bear was great

Its time to stop wearing a costume but i want one. In the comic he doesnt get the girl i like the movie better

Hot chic on the cell cool rideing your bike to meet kickass. Third act is really good injoying the movie a lot. No more posts movies to good here

Monday, April 12, 2010

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Firefly


Firefly album cover
Image via Wikipedia


14 shows.  Fox only gave us fourteen shows.  I didn't watch this show when it was on during it's run on Fox and so I'm partly at fault for the shows demise.  I have had many hours of watching Firefly this week on Netflix.  It is the best scifi I have watched in many years.

It many ways its right out of Robert Heinlein world.   The juxtaposition of  cowboys and spaceships could of come from the world of Lazarus Long from the book Time Enough for Love in the chapter The Story of the Adopted  Daughter.   In this section Heinlein tells the story of how the space colonies have imported horses and built wagons to help colonize the planet.  Heinlein's explanation that horses can eat foliage and wagons can be made from local wood.  Horses are self replicating trackers require gas, oil, metal shops and mechanics.  (Yes for the people who would criticize my knowledge I know they imported talking mules)

I have read on the web many people criticize Joss Whedon for his use of cowboys, six shooters and other anachronistic forms in his space show.  I would explane to them what Heinlein showed us.  That moving off planet would require that we develop again a primitive society until we could rebuild the tech based from the resources of that world.

The stories are of such deep settings that you can not see the resolution of show elements for many episodes.   Unfortunately for us we were not able to see the results for many of these storyline due to the premature ending of th show.  Among the stories I would liked to have  seen completed was the story of the sheepard.  I would have liked to see more about River and Simemon, some flashbacks about the romance of Zoe and Wash.  There was so much about this show that I would have liked to have seen.  The problem of caurse is that I didn't tune in to the show while it was on tv and I like so many others let the show down by not giving it the viewers it needed to be stay on TV.

The might of haves and could of haves and the if onlys have left us with only 14 shows and a movie for what might have been the best show of all time.  But it could of died a bad ending like Dollhouse.
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Friday, April 9, 2010

Spartucus Blood and Sand


Comune di Roma
Image via Wikipedia


I have just this last day found on Netflix the show Spartucus Blood and Sand.  While I have spent many hours watching the show trying to get a felling for it I have to say it's not the show I would have thought it was going to be.  I watched Rome and while I didn't love it.  It was fairly good.  My problem with Rome was, that it, like most shows done in America trys to Americanize the world.

Now this is normlly done by sanitizing the show to remove the "Adult "content of the program.  I have felt many times that the progrms are never truely showing the lifestyles of the peoples they portray.  Now I have seen a show that goes the other way.  Spartucus is going out of  it's way to show the nonchristian aspects of Greek society.

This program shows many many many scenes of nudity, homosexuality and paganism.  And after years of complaining about the content of shows like Rome I have to say I don't like Spactucus because it goes to far the other way. Not so much the paganism but the adult nature of the program.

The nudity doesn't shock or disturb me.  But it does distract me from the story.  Its not the female nudity its much like Watchman the male nudity that does it.  I know why its so distracting to see all those penises it's the fact tah american tv and movies for the most part refuse to show male frontal nudity.  This is not fair to the ladies and gay guys that don't get their thrill like straight guys do.

What I find even more disturbing about Spartucus Blood and Sand is the over heighthend blood and gore.  The show revels in death.  It revels in blood, gore and violence.  I find the battles more difficult to watch then most tv and movie violence.  I'm not sure if it's the sepia tone of the rest of the show or the computer generated red of the blood but I just find it hard to watch the gladiator scenes.  I didn't have this problem with 300 so I don't really understand why I'm turned off by Spartucus.


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